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Sweet 'n Slow

Updated Aug. 4, 1997 12:01 a.m. ET

We know that a fair number of our readers can say they've been involved in policy battles--public and private--that have run for years. There can't be too many, though, who can claim to have been fighting their cause since 1906, when a gauntlet was thrown down by no less than Teddy Roosevelt. The cause, believe it or not, was saccharin, better known nowadays as the sweet thing inside those little pink packets known as Sweet 'n Low.

TR liked to sweeten his chewing tobacco with saccharin, and said that "anyone who says saccharin is injurious to health is an idiot." We suspect it would come as no surprise to Mr. Roosevelt that the United States Congress has been making idiots of us all for the past 20 years, imposing a portentous health warning on the pink packets. Now, after some 90 years, the dispute may be close to a resolution.

The National Toxicology Program, part of the Department of Health and Human Services, traditionally has listed saccharin as one of more than 170 potentially cancer-causing carcinogens lurking in kitchens and beyond. But for those who like a little Sweet 'n Low with their coffee, relief is in sight: Saccharin may soon be delisted as an "anticipated" cancer threat. While this may be good news, the NTP has no regulatory power. Delisting saccharin is an improvement, but the Food and Drug Administration and Congress still have the final word. Thanks to a famous piece of bad law called the Delaney clause, the debate will continue.

The Delaney clause--a 1958 act that bans any synthetic food chemical found to cause cancer when ingested by laboratory rats--kicked into effect for saccharin in 1977, as the Food and Drug Administration reacted to a study finding bladder tumors in rodents. Following the Delaney mandate, the FDA tried to ban the artificial sweetener. But its announcement that the additive was to meet a bitter end caused a public uproar. So instead of banning what they believed to be a harmful substance, Congress compromised with the warning label.

The moratorium on the saccharin ban was repeatedly extended until this year. Now all of a sudden, a timid "never mind" can be heard from Washington scientists.

However gratifying it is to hear that some scientists are revisiting the saccharin issue, the core of the problem lies in the Delaney clause. Under Delaney's provisions your toast and butter should receive the same treatment as the sweetener for your morning coffee. But they don't because they are "natural." They contain ethyl carbonate and diacetyl--both chemicals that at some outlandishly huge dose cause cancer in animals.

The old adage remains true: it's the dose that makes the poison. What these warning labels fail to mention is that the assumption that saccharin causes cancer in rats is based on a 1977 Canadian study on two generations of rats all fed 500 times a normal human intake of saccharin. While NTP scientists are re-evaluating saccharin, they should tackle the real issue: Delaney.

The National Toxicology Program has been busy making lists of potentially carcinogenic chemicals (some as innocuous as the ones found in table salt, mushrooms and potatoes), but is just now waking up to the fact that ultra-violet rays from sunshine and tobacco smoke may be even more worthy of the carcinogens list. As saccharin is prepared for delisting, these will be potentially added to the "anticipated" cancer-causing list when the NTP submits its ninth review to Congress. Hardly breaking news, but at least scientifically sound for a change.

The available scientific studies on the no-calorie sweetener will undergo a series of peer reviews by public- and private-sector scientists to determine what the everyday coffee drinker already knew: Saccharin may give rise to tumors in lab animals, but rodents are not little men. Diabetics have been relying on it for years--in high doses--with no ill effects. The proposed ban and Congress-enforced warning label on saccharin was absurd in 1977 and is embarrassing now. The truth is, politicians have been afraid to eliminate the Delaney clause for fear of being labeled pro-cancer.

Regardless, serious scientists are pleased that the NTP is entering reality on some of these issues, but there is a long way to go. If saccharin is delisted from the NTP's anticipated carcinogen list, another larger hurdle will remain--what to do with the warning label mandated under the Delaney clause. The NTP statement will be a report, not a regulation. Here's hoping the debate on saccharin will lead to the downfall of Delaney. It is time Congress issued a rule based on science instead of a rule of hysteria.